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E R K A T A . 



On page 44 read "The January, 1901, Atlantic," instead ot 
"May, 1891." 



ADDENDA. 



Since writing tbip booklet the author has been told that in 
San Francisco a school law has been passed by which no child 
under the age of fifteen can be forced to study at home; a step 
in a good direction this, for which we are indebted to Mrs. 
Mary Kincaid. 



The Tocsin -Our Chil- 
dren in Peril 



Elizabeth Strong Worthington. 

Author of ** How to Cook Husbands," 

<<The Gentle Art of Cooking 

Wives," etc. 



I » i i » -) O K * 

5)53 J 1 

> ■> 3 3 ) 3 



SAN FR ANCISOO : 
CuBEKY & Co., Book and Job Printers and Publishers, 587 Mission St, 

1901. 



TV'E Li3RARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Cor^Ica RtCEIVEO 

NOV. 2 1901 

copvhiqht entry 
CLm;?S (XXXo- '^-^• 

/ y/bcfL 



COPY 3. 



^m^i^mm4 






Copyrighted 1901, by 
ELIZABETH STRONG WORTHINGTON. 



c,c c .« 



t etc 



J^ 



PKEFACE. 



Those who have made Pedagogy a life study, may resent criti- 
cism from an outsider; but I hope they will bear in mind that 
many a valuable hint has come from a humble source. 

I sit in my dear little nest, and brood over my birdlings, but 
even in this retirement, I am visited by thoughts which may, 
perhaps, be of service to those who have the opportunity and 
ability to carry them out. Although I am no architect, I can note 
the overloaded — the sinking column, and call in those who are 
able to relieve the pressure, and restore the equilibrium; I can 
note the smoldering fire in the house-top, and sound the alarm. 
So, perhaps, I may be able to note the overloaded, sinking brain, 
and the smoldering fires of Sensuality, and sound The Tocsin. 

May the call be heard, and may the Great Architect — the Great 
Chief — send his good, wise, capable agents of relief, for the saving 
of our children. 

Elizabeth Stbong Worthington. 



CONTENTS 



Paet I. . - - - - 

The Overcrowded Brain. 



Part II. - - - ^3 , 

The Growing Immorality of Children. 



Part III. ------- 54 

Suggestions as to Remedies. 



OUR CHILDREN IN PERIL, 



PAKT I. 

THE OYEECROWDED BRAIN. 

Not many months ago, in a Western city, two young- 
girls, unconnected with one another, at different times, 
went out of this world into the next, and by the wrong 
door; the one turned on the gas, and the other endured 
the torture of carbolic acid, to escape the torture of the 
curriculum. 

Both were in the high school ; both had been suffering 
from ill health; both were tired and discouraged in their 
struggle to keep abreast with the work, and both laid 
down voluntarily and went to sleep, to waken, they 
probably hoped, where they would be assigned tasks not 
beyond their powers of accomplishment. 

It was an awful thing for the families — these two 
suicides, but by God's help the suffering and premature 
end of their young lives may be the means of saving 
others, for these cases have already attracted attention, 
and must attract more. There was, of course, an inves- 
tigation, and in the course of this the superintendent of 
public schools said (so the report ran) that he did not 
hold the schools guilty; the young girls were not up to 
the usual standard of strength and should not have 
attempted full work. Parents, he insisted, were too 



ambitious for their cLildren, wanting tliem to take the 
full course and graduate, even when they knew that they 
had weak constitutions. 

There is something of value in all of this, but it does 
not strike down to the root of the matter; we must probe 
deeper before we can discover and heal the original 
trouble. 

If these young girls presented, to our mental vision, 
cases as new as they are startling, we might accept the 
remedy suggested by the superintendent's defense, and 
rest content; but when we look abroad throughout the 
length and breadth of our land, we are compelled to 
conclude that such a remedy would but ill fit the enor- 
mity of the trouble which we are called upon to treat. 

If we will but listen fairly and intelligently, we shall 
hear from all quarters the same cry — overwork; if we 
will but look with honest eyes, we shall see the same 
sight — tired, broken down youths and maidens. This has 
been brought home personally to me again and again — 
not through my own children, for I have not allowed 
them to suffer — but through the failure of my efforts to 
secure a normal, healthy young woman to teach my 
younger ones. Fate and inclination have made a tramp 
of me for some years, so I have had opportunity to test 
this matter of curriculum in several cities, and have also, 
in a number of different parts of the country, put forth 
efforts to secure assistance at home in the training of 
my children. 

Again and again I have heard: " T am not very strong; 
I broke down the last year at the high school; " or: "I 
have never been well since I left the university." 

My experience in this regard has led me to the con- 



elusion that it is most difficult to find a college graduate 
whose nervous system is not badly impaired; most 
difficult to find even a high school or a normal school 
graduate who has not been more or less injured 
nervously. 

Nor is this all the testimony we can offer in the case. 
Throughout our land there are intelligent parents who 
will tell you of sad cases of shattered nerves among 
their children; all over our land are physiciaus who will 
tell you of young patients, broken by school work — they 
will tell of requests by the thousands for some tonic that 
will serve to temporarily mend the nerves, and enable 
them to hold out until after graduation — some medical 
lash to stimulate the tired, broken steed to keep up and 
keep on until the goal is reached. What then? Life 
just fairly begins when the student closes the university 
door behind him, and we who have lived over thirty 
years realize that a strong body, an unimpaired brain, 
and sound nerves, are factors among the outfit necessary 
to meet life properly. 

Our young folks do not know this; we have to know 
it for them. "Oh, if I can only get past graduation day 
safely, I don't care what comes then." That is their 
attitude. Throughout their course, this same graduation 
day has loomed up before their young, inexperienced 
eyes as the goal of all effort; toward this they turned their 
little feet on the very first day of entering school, and 
whenever, in the course of succeeding years, they have 
stumbled and fallen, their first look on rising has been 
toward the goal, to see if, by slipping, they have lost 
ground and are set back from the object of all their 
work. The large majority of our young people are 



working for marks, and marks are of value in propor- 
tion as tliey bear on the final great day. They are not 
working for Life; that is the unknown, but for that 
which is known — the diploma; and each year as it is 
presented to excited, fluttering candidates, those in the 
lower ranks look on and desire it more ardently than 
ever. It is small wonder then that they can not use 
temperance in their gait. What then? we must use it 
for them. And how? Ah me! how? In this, as in all 
else, it were easier to tell the twenty what were good to 
be done, than to be one of the twenty to do it. 

Temperance, like consistency, is a jewel, and we must 
look far and long ere we find it, even in grown up ranks. 
What folly then to expect it in children, and how crimi- 
nal to leave children to furnish this jewel for their 
guidance, or to break down for lack of it. To be 
stupid; to be lacking in ambition; to be unprincipled 
and to shirk — all this is not being temperate, and I am 
not writing of children of this sort; physically these 
will come out well enough; it is for the mettlesome, the 
high-spirited, the aspiring that we must fear. 

Ay, we fear for those who are made of the mettle 
which carries America to the front wherever she goes; 
for those who are of the same sort as were our fore- 
fathers, when they snapped our bonds and wrote 
America on the banner of the free; of the same sort as 
those who have carried our flag more than half way 
around the world, and made it one of the most respected, 
as well as one of the most beloved, of all that flutter in the 
winds of heaven. Perhaps he did not mean it so, never- 
theless this is the sort that the superintendent was re- 
ported as calling weak. You know, and I know, however, 



that this weakness is our strength — our nerve. Like the 
delicate machinery of a watch it is easily put out of gear; 
an ignorant, clumsy touch and it is ruined, but with 
care, with wisdom in the handling, it keeps time, and 
holds true to the course, year after year. 

Now what must we do with this, our finest mettle, in 
the school? Must we select an especial course for such 
children, and deny them the crowning glory of their 
school year — graduation; the public recognition of the 
value of their work; the " well done " of the faculty and 
trustees? What would be the effect of that? Try it on 
a horse; take a mettlesome thoroughbred, capable of 
winning the race, if placed in proper hands; give him 
to an ignorant jockey whose only idea of gaining the 
required speed is to use the lash. Command him not 
to whip, and not to try to win, but to draw out, and jog 
along as best he can, on account of the weakness of his 
mount. Now watch the poor steed when the band plays, 
and the racers rush past him. See his delicate form 
quiver, and his eyeballs glow with excitement, as he 
plunges, in vain effort to take the place that lawfully 
belongs to him. Ay! belongs to him; for he has a right 
to a place in the van. So have our high-spirited chil- 
dren a right to run the race — a right to win. Indeed, 
we cannot spare them from the lists, and if the condi- 
tions are such that they cannot run without being in- 
jured, the conditions are at fault, and must be changed. 

Nerves are troublesome factors; if diseased, they be- 
come our weakness; if healthy, our strength. Here in 
America, from the very beginning of a child's life, we 
are forced to deal with them, and the more highly bred 
the child, the more troublesome this particular factor, 



6 

as a general rule. Unhappily tliis is not universally 
understood — certainly not acted upon universally, even 
by our educators. All of us " grown-ups," in fact, are 
more or less stupid in this regard, and our blunders 
militate seriously against our success in dealing with 
one another, as well as with children. AVe appreciate 
injuries to the body — apologize if we so much as tread 
upon our neighbor's foot, but we tread upon his nerves 
without a pang of remorse. If our boys and girls 
happen to be well grown and strong looking outwardl}^, 
we pile mental work upon them, taxing and straining 
that delicate network, which is almost the essence of life, 
and for Avhich the tlosh is merely the protective case — in 
short riding rough-shod over that mysterious and intri- 
cate mesh known as the nervous system, without a 
thought of the incalculable injury we are doing. 

Oliver AVendell Holmes refers to this when he speaks 
of the readiness with which wo tap one another's nerves 
when, no doubt, we would shrink from doing him fleshly 
harm. .I3ut a flesh wound usually heals, while an over- 
strained nerve is often a sad factor to deal with a whole 
life long. 

We hear at once too much and too little of all this. 
It is unwise to accustom children to think of their 
nerves, but it is most unfortunate for those who have 
children in charge to overlook these nerves in a scheme 
of training. If teachers forget their duty in this regard, 
parents must jog their memories, and when I say this I 
am not without a vivid consciousness of the unpleasant- 
ness and difliculty of tlie task. AVe mothers especially, 
are liable to the imputation of f ussiness, foolishness, and 
all sorts of other nesses, which we can not refute, and 



often find it trying to rest under, when we urge caution 
in the direction of mental work for children. Even our 
married partners frequently laugh at our fears, and when 
we go to the school we are still more liable to ridicule. 

1 once found it very difficult to stand in the presence 
of the polite incredulity and amusement shown when I 
insisted that one of my children — a large stout- appear- 
ing boy — must not study out of school. 

" He does not look delicate," said the principal. 

I winced before the subtle sarcasm, but took a firmer 
grip on my position. In view of tlie appearance my boy 
presented, and in view of the fact that he was ashamed 
to show at school the irritability which was to me the 
warning signal, I realized that it was futile to attempt 
to make his teacher understand the risk he would run, 
if his mental work were carried into the hours at home. 

But I clung, with undying tenacity, to my "must not," 
and protected the boy, although I did not enjoy posing 
as a silly woman. 

This last, however, was but a trifle in the scale. We are 
what we are, rather than what another may think us; 
fortunately the verdict Foolish can not do away with good 
sense, and unhappily the verdict Sensible can not abolish 
folly. 

No doubt I am pricked to more earnest effort toward 
a reformation in our school system by a vivid page in 
my own history. Like many another child, I was, soon 
after entering school, loaded with more books than my 
poor little brain could have held had time permitted me 
to study them. I used to look drearily at my armful as 
I went home, and realize that even if I worked during 
my every waking moment, I could not learn all that had 



8 

been assigned me for the next day. Then came the 
difficult task of choosing which to take and which to 
leave. To a conscientious, ambitious child this is always 
a hard matter; in the end he is all but certain to do just 
what I did — turn over the list feverishly, as a debt-laden 
man with a little money in his hands runs over his bills — 
"No, I can't leave this out;" and "No, I mustnH omit 
that," and so on, until in the end the poor child who is 
attempting impossibilities, gives up, goes to school nerv- 
ously worn out and discouraged, to make an attempt to 
slip through as many recitations as he can, and escape 
the dreaded zero. 

Is it not easy to be seen that days and weeks of this 
sort result, not alone in a nerve disintegration but a moral 
disintegration as well. Happily for mj^self, my nerves 
gave way soon enough to save me from the full effort of 
the unconscious lack of faithfulness in class work, and 
for two years I was an invalid. The doctor's verdict 
was: "She will never be able to study again," and this 
fell heavily on the hearing of parents who thought there 
was occasion for bright anticipations. 

No one dared to tell me what was said, for fear of its 
possible effect, and week after week, I chafed, and as it 
were, watched the school door, seeing, with beating — 
all but breaking heart, my classmates walk on ahead of 
me. Fortunately the doctor was mistaken, and at the 
end of two years I was able to step into the school ranks 
again, healed but scarred. 

Naturally, with such a leaf in the history of my child- 
hood, I was on the alert, when my children started to 
school, to see that this unhappy tale was not " twice 
told," and it was not long before I had occasion for con- 



cern. My daughter, a child of almost nine, and her 
brother, one year younger, were kept in school until half 
past three, and then sent home with enough work to 
occupy three quarters of an hour or more. I refused to 
let them study at home, and they begged me to go and 
talk with their teachers, as they were afraid otherwise to 
leave their work undone. The teachers said they had 
no volition in the matter, so I repaired to the principal, 
a burly woman, with a voice and manner that harmon- 
ized with her figure. My interview was memorable, 
because of its being the only instance in which I have 
been treated with rudeness, on the many occasions upon 
which I have felt compelled to object to some features of 
the school work, or some school rule. 

On enteriug the office, I was bidden, by the teacher 
who escorted me, to take a seat, which I did, while she 
approached the august personage who sat writing at a 
desk. After a low- voiced colloquy, in which she ex- 
plained enough of my errand to raise the ire of her 
superior, the teacher came to me and said, in a depreca- 
tory manner as if she were sorry to be forced to use me 
thus: "Miss Blank is very busy, and she says it is a 
rule of the school that pupils in those grades shall study 
at home three quarters of an hour daily. 

I wished to reach the fountain of the trouble, so I 
asked: " Whose rule is it ? " 

Before the teacher could open her lips, Miss Blank, 
who still sat writing at her desk — her back turned 
toward me, snapped out: " It is my rule." 

" Very well," I said to the teacher, " I have some mat- 
ters to talk over with Miss Blank, and will await her 
leisure." 



10 

Then the teacher went out of the room, leaving me 
absohitely unprotected! I nerved myself for an en- 
counter which I readily divined, from my study of the 
back of my robust antagonist, was to be of no trifling 
nature. 

After some moments of waiting, she remarked, still 
without turning, " I'm very busy this morning, and I 
can't talk with you." 

" I'll call another day, if you will be so kind as to name 
one convenient for you." 

Then she wheeled in her chair and faced me. 

" There's no use in our wasting time; the rule won't be 
changed for you, and it won't do any good for you to 
talk it over with me. I know just what you are going 
to say." 

" I beg your pardon, but you do not know what I am 
going to say." 

Then she waxed excitable, and poured forth a volley of 
words about the number of people wanting to see her at 
that moment, and the children needing her, and the 
duties in general claiming her attention. From this she 
launched into a treatise on the uselessness of my errand. 

To all tiiis I listened without a word. Had I stormed 
in return I should have been very harmless, for I should 
presently have realized I had put myself in a weak 
position b}^ so doing; should have regretted my mood, 
and endeavored to make amends. But whenever I close 
my lips and in silence hear the enemy out, beware! Then 
I am dangerous. 

When my big antognist paused for breath, I said 
quietly : " Some other time would perhaps be more con- 
venient for you; I'll wait." 



11 

She looked into my ^'ace and realized that I was capa- 
ble of sitting on that chair for several years. Now very 
few principals would care to have the same woman win- 
tering and summering in their office, as a steady thing, 
and this principal was not one of the few. So, after 
taking in the situation, and realizing that I had come to 
be heard, she swung a chair directly in front of me, and 
with a manner that would have caused a timid person to 
quail, said: 

" Well, I may as well hear you now as any other time; 
what have you to say? " 

A palmist once told me that I was not aggressive, and 
I think he was right. I am not fond of difficulties, but 
there are some subjects that nerve me to such a degree 
that I can enter a battle of any proportions with a cer- 
tain relish, and one of these subjects is my children. 

So it was without a feeling of the slightest timidity, 
but with the strongest sense of support in the justice of 
my cause, and — to be entirely frank — a relish of the 
situation as well, that I went through my task. 

" You say this rule is not to be changed. Am I dealing 
with the Medes and Persians?" 

She looked furious. 

"You are ready to maintain then, that the public 
school system is perfect." 

" No, I haven't said anything of the kind. I don't 
suppose it is." 

"Very well then; if it is not perfect, it must be faulty, 
and if faulty, must be susceptible to change." 

" Well, this rule won't be changed, for it was made for 
a purpose, and it answers that very well." 

" What is that, may I ask? " 



12 

" Why the children have to study at home as soon as 
they are in the higher grades, and this is to accustom 
them to it." 

" I have heard of this method before," I remarked; 
" down in Mississippi my parents knew a woman who 
used to have her coachman drive her five or six miles 
Sunday morning to prepare her to endure the strain of 
the half-mile drive to church. Now setting aside all 
question of the advisability of the study hour or two at 
home later on, let me ask you if the best preparation for 
a hard pull is not the building up of the strength before- 
hand, and whether you think this purpose is best attained 
by denying to these little ones the freedom for play and 
the sunlight, which we all know are necessary factors in 
a child's normal development." 

" Nobody wants to deny them sunlight and play," she 
said. 

" I live near the school," I responded, " and yet my 
little ones don't reach home until a quarter of four. 
Between this hour and bedtime, half past seven, they 
must study three quarters of an hour, practice (I think 
you will allow that music is a very important part of 
their education), and take dinner, to say nothing of 
finding time for our family hour, when I read aloud and 
chat with them. How much space does this leave for 
running about in the sun and fresh air?" 

''Half past seven is a very early bedtime. Most 
children sit up later than that." 

"A half past seven start seldom means sleep before 
eight, or even a little later. Growing children, as you 
doubtless know, need a great deal of sleep." 



13 

" Well, will you tell me what you want? " she asked 
at length, in a tone tinged with desperation. 

" Gladly; I want my children to be allowed to study 
in school. There are hours enough spent here for study 
and recitation both; but as matters go now, they are 
always given some work or something extra to keep them 
busy during the time when they could and should be 
studying." 

" Very well, if your children can keep up with the 
grade without working at home, they are welcome to do 
it." 

"And they may have time for study at school, instead 
of being compelled to take part in all these extra 
exercises?" 

" Yes, they may." 

I felt it was a case of the unjust judge; my conUniious 
sitting wearied her, and she yielded. 

But even with this concession, I found that the school 
did not agree with my babies. The change from a life 
in which, after three or four hours spent with their gov- 
erness, they were given the freedom of birds for the rest 
of the sunlighted day, was too great and too hard for 
their precious, unfolding spirits and their chubby little 
bodies, so at the end of a month I returned them to the 
nursery school. 

Two years later, when we had, like poor Joe, " moved 
on " to another place, I started them again, this time to 
a school where one could go with a question, or even an 
objection, and be certain of a courteous hearing. By 
this time my children were in perfect health again, but 
ere long the little daughter began to grow pale, and from 
being full of life and energy, became listless. 



14 

" What lias come to pass? " the governess and I asked 
one another when we saw her seek the hammock as soon 
as she entered the house, day after day — she who had 
never seemed to tire — she whom Ave had often dubbed 
The Gay Little Girl. 

When I proposed one of our good old fashioned 
tramps, she said, wearily: 

" I can't go." 

"Why not?" 

" I have so much to study." 

"What?" 

" Oh, a page of Evangeline to commit to memory, and 
a long geography lesson, and my arithmetic." 

"Where are they all?" 

She brought out the books and handed them to me, 
with the places marked. I closed Evangeline with a 
snap. 

"There now, your poetry is learned, what else?" 

" Why mama ! " 

Next the geography went to with a bang, and the 
arithmetic was closed as tightly and as suddenly as the 
shell of a clam on the approach of danger. 

"And now you've learned your geography and arith- 
metic, so you're ready for a walk; run, get your hat." 

"But mama, I haven't learned my lessons." 

"You've learned all you'll learn tonight." 

" But I've no time to study in the morning." 

" I know it." 

"And I don't dare to go to school without my lessons, 
unless you go with me." 

I readily consented, for I was wrought up to a pitch 
when the thought of an encounter with the enemy is a 
distinct relief. 



15 

By morning I liad cooled somewhat, and indeed there 
was no need of battle, for as I learned in subsequent 
interviews, after becoming better acquainted with the 
gentle little teacher, she was quite my way of thinking. 

" But what can we do? " she asked me. " We teachers 
are almost as helpless as the pupils. The pace is set for 
us and we are obliged to keep it. There are just so 
many pages to be gone over each term, and if many of 
our pupils fail to pass the examinations, we are held 
responsible, and generally lose our positions. What 
can we do?" 

What indeed! But then and there I resolved that I 
would do all I could to call attention to this system, so 
ruinous to teachers and pupils both. 

I managed to secure relief for my little daughter at 
that time by obtaining permission for her to study in 
school. My boy, being of a less excitable tempera- 
ment, was not suffering as much damage, but a few 
months later I took them both out, for various reasons, 
and renewed the home school, where I expect to keep 
them for some years. 

These scenes that I have transcribed are most simple 
in construction — puerile they would be accounted in a 
literary sense, but as faithful recitals of actualities, 
which testify to certain conditions existent in our public 
schools today, they are of grave importance. Look 
about you; your own eyes will substantiate the truth of 
my words. Hardly any one who has children is without 
one or more evidences of the results of this overcrowd- 
ing system, and the overloaded arms of many young 
folk in the higher grades, as they return from school, is 
an additional proof of what I have asserted. 



16 

I asked a high school miss of my acquaintance, whom 
I met one afternoon, wliat slie was supposed to do with 
tliat pile of books she was carrying. 

'' Learn them, every one, before tomorrow morning,-' 
she replied with a laugh — she was not of the kind that 
takes life seriously. 

" You know very well you can't do that," I said. 

" I know that I can slip out of them then," she re- 
sponded, with another laugh. 

And so she passed on, to study her lesson in super- 
ficiality and evasion. Again I look back to my own 
school days in the city which was my home. I have a 
picture before me now of one of my classmates — a 
bright girl, the daughter of an army officer — as she sat 
crying in a vexed, despondent AViiy, because she realized 
that she could not, by any possibility, learn all the les- 
sons assigned her. It often seemed to me personally, as 
if each teacher gave what woidd comfortably fill the 
time between the close of school one day, and its open- 
ing the next, without the slightest thought of what any 
other teacher might be giving. This method, when 
ado})ted by some half dozen teachers, naturally resulted 
in a volume of work which we could hardly have 
crammed into our poor little brains had we cliarged 
them to the very muzzle. 

It is the work we don't do that kills; we all know that, 
and the scliool woik I could not master broke me down, 
and came near crippling me for life. 

The system is all false — all miserably wrong. AVe 
know what it is for a student to cram for examination; 
a brain temporarily stretched, as it were, only to spring 
back again with an impaired quality. What is learned 



17 

for the occasion does well if it lasts the occasion out; it 
is not expected to last longer. It is so with cramming 
for recitation. No fine intellectual results can be ob- 
tained by this method ; these require the careful, 
thoughtful conning of a few — a very few lessons, and 
morally I am convinced that the results of this work for 
the hour are disastrous. 

Overwork is not confined to the children, teachers also 
suffer from it. Compelled oftentimes, by their tasks, to 
remain after school hours, carrying home a load of vari- 
ous kinds, that must bo lifted before the next day, tliey 
too often return to school listless and weary — in no con- 
dition to impart knowledge, much less to inspire their 
pupils with lofty ideals. 

As a consequence of the much to do and little to gain 
(for the pay is small) we frequently have to fill our lists 
with the names of women who x^ossess no taste or qual- 
ification for the grandest position outside of parenthood. 
I have known many teachers and admired most of them, 
but for all this I could not help seeing that a large num- 
ber were out of place. 

"You can't imagine how I long for Friday, and how 
I dread Monday," said one to me, a while ago. 

I felt sorry for her, poor girl, but I felt still more 
sorry for her pupils. The difference between what their 
school work was with her, and what it might have been 
with one gifted for the work, is too great for us to grasp 
easily. 

Personally I regarded her with greater wonder and ad- 
miration than I would have regarded a teacher who 
loved her work; for the stern performance of distaste- 
ful duties, week after week, and month after month, im- 



18 

plies moral strength of no common order. Unhappily, 
however, her pupils received but little benefit from this, 
but, on the contrary, suffered from the lack of other 
qualities in this misfit case. But even an en- 
thusiastic teacher finds his spirit taxed, and often 
spent, by this severe regime. The number of exercises 
(needless exercises it seems to me) and examination 
papers to be taken home, not only preclude any idea of 
rest by change and amusement, but too often prevent the 
study and reading necessary for advancement in his 
art. These manifold exercises are injurious to both 
teacher and jDupil — ruining as they do the handwriting 
of the latter. 

In school continual unrest is the law. Only lately a 
friend, speaking of her children, said: 

" I really don't know what to do with them, but I must 
make some change next year; they have no chance to 
study in school — teacher rattles on all day — and no time 
for play out of school." 

Now when the teacher is compelled to " rattle on all 
day," a grevious wrong is done her, and the children as 
well. If we do not wish to become a nation of rattle- 
brains, we must put a stop to this rattling on continu- 
ally in school. A necessary element of a good educa- 
tion is quietude — opi3ortunity for study, oj^portunity for 
thought, and instruction in studying and in think- 
ing. No intellectual brawn and muscle, capable of 
standing the test of time, can be formed in the midst 
of noise and commotion. Nor is this condition favor- 
able to the cultivation of the best type of manners. As 
a nation we lack poise, and what wonder? The peculi- 
arity of our climate, the conditions of our business life, 



19 

and still more the training we receive as children, all 
tend in the direction of nervous excitement. ^ 

The superficial result of this — quickness, animation of 
feature and intellect, is temporarily fascinating, but alas 
for the stuff that endures unto the end. Now I am not 
advocating such solidity of education as shall disbar 
all that lighter literature, intercourse and experience 
which tends to lend a sparkle to manner and conversa- 
tion. Such a course would be unfortunate, since it would 
produce men and women so heavy and clumsy in the 
movements of every day life, that one who had the mis- 
fortune to attempt to manipulate them, socially or other- 
wise, would, as she trundled them about from place to 
place, feel as if she had a number of pieces of ponder- 
ous furniture on her hands of a sweeping day. In this 
matter of training, as in almost all else, the golden mein 
is the true path, and the wisdom to discover it, and the 
strength to keep the feet therein, should be our goal. 

I shall have more to say on this subject of unrest 
later on; and, if I am not much mistaken, we have more 
suffering of various kinds to undergo because of it 
latei' on. 

We are in continual need of being reminded that it 
is not what we eat that makes us strong, but what we 
digest and assimulate — not what we read or study that 
makes us intellectual, but what we remember and appro- 
priate, and that it is folly to attempt to devour books 
by the wholesale. 

Here, in America, " Too much! too much! " is a com- 
mon cry. We overeat, overwork and over study. As a 
nation we are intemperate, and knowing this, we never- 
theless go on deliberately, it would seem, fostering in 



20 

our children those unfortunate tendencies which are 
their inheritance as Americans. Not only are our pub- 
lic schools attempting to teach too much, from year to 
year, but in the opinion of some of our thoughtful men 
and women, they are carrying the course too far. 

It has, for some time, been a grave question with 
many whether the state was doing its citizens a kind- 
ness in giving them such an education free. We all 
have noted a growing dissatisfaction with labor; an im- 
patience with its necessarily hard conditions and modest 
returns; a restlessness in the lower ranks of society; a 
growing determination to step out of the working classes 
and to forsake the trades, lor the situations. 

Near me, in a little village in which I lived for a time, 
was a sweet, gentle Swedish woman, of the class which 
make up the peasantry in her own country. She was 
working herself into an early grave in order to give her 
daughters time for an education. She was but one of 
a horde of mothers who want their daughters to become 
teachers, when there are already more teachers from out 
that class than there is any legitimate place for, while 
all over our land, burdened wives and mothers are long- 
ing to give comfortable homes and modest wages for 
just such service, as these girls could render, and no 
doubt would render, were they not spoiled by our public 
school system. 

I am very well aware that such a paragraph as the 
foregoing is enough to cost a politician his head, but 
that fact does not impair its truth. If we could for a 
moment get outside of our vaunted freedom and equal 
opportunity for all, we might look at this subject dispas- 
sionately and see that a contented peasantry, where 
thrift, integrity, domestic virtues and modest wants were 



21 

leading characteristics, adds strength to a nation, while 
on the other hand a seething, discontented class, scorn- 
ful of manual labor, in haste to be rich, fiercely deter- 
mined to be thought "as good as any body else," is a 
menace to national safety. If our public school system 
tends to diminish the first named class, and to swell the 
numbers of the second, we shall ultimately see our error, 
and wish we had seen it earlier in the day. 

When we come to consider the matter, the various 
branches in the higher walks of professional and busi- 
ness life play but a small part in ministering to our 
necessities, in comparison with the trades and so-called 
menial occupations. For this reason the State, repre- 
senting as it does the people at large, would be worse 
than foolish to burden itself with taxation in order to 
carry on a system of education calculated to unfit its 
children to serve the people. I am not asserting that 
our present system does this, but I am earnestly advo- 
cating that we look into the matter. 

We are ready enough to see that a great increase of 
self-respect and ambition sometimes results from a con- 
stant repetition, in the ear of our American youth, of 
such remarks as " You may be President some day," or 
" There's always room on the top; " but we seldom pause 
to see that these statements, true enough in themselves, 
and true enough in connection with some few individuals, 
nevertheless work serious injury to great numbers of 
people. If we will but step out of the glare and bustle 
of every day life into some quiet nook, as it were, where 
we shall cease to hear the screaming of the American 
eagle, long enough to realize this, we may be induced to 
make some important changes in our public school sys- 
tem, and to listen, without passion or scorn, to thoughtful 



22 

people who tell us that the rudiments — an ability to read 
and write; such ciphering as may be necessary in every 
day life; some knowledge of geogra[)hy, and manual 
aptness in some trade, is all the education the State 
should be called upon to furnisli. 

I hope that I shall not be understood to assert that 
whatsoever is more than this Yea and Nay of education, 
Cometh of evil. But I do say that any unprejudiced 
observer can see for himself that the results of our 
present system are very unsatisfactory, and in the over- 
turning of affairs which is sure to come, soon or late, 
our thinkers may decide that anything beyond the 
elementary branches should be paid for, in money or in 
labor. There are today schools and colleges where the 
expenses of tuition and residence are small, and the 
opportunities for industrious, capable and ambitious 
boys and girls (the only kind worthy of education) to 
work their way, are many. 

The Lowell School of Practical Design in Boston, 
whose tuition is free, furnishes in its regulations some 
hints upon which our public school boards would do 
well to reflect At this institute the number of pupils 
is limited to forty-two, and " only those students can be 
retained who, after a fair and patient trial, are found to 
have some aptitude for the work." At the close of each 
half year all those found to be gravely deficient are 
notified and a quiet — seemingly voluntary — withdrawal 
is the result. 

Such institutions would increase in number and effi- 
ciency, were the demand for them to increase, so the 
abolition of advanced education, given freely and indis- 
criminately, need not doom our clever, energetic youth 
to ignorance. 



23 

The self-made man is already an American divinity, 
and although we have pushed him rather too far up in 
the air and he is, as some one remarked, tremendously 
fond of trying himself on in public, he makes, on the 
whole, a much more substantial and useful citizen than 
some of the nerve-spent, brain-spent, enervated products 
of our free education, and we need not hesitate to multi- 
ply his species by a change in our methods. 

But whatever our educators may decide upon this 
point in the future, one thing is certain in the present: 
our curriculum today is too ponderous, and our students 
too hard pressed. 

Scientists have learned that slow growth is a law of 
superiority in the animal world; according as the infancy , 
or period of development, is long or short, the maturity 
is superior or inferior. The jungle fowl — low in the 
scale of intelligence — is a notable instance of precocity, 
since it is equipped for life so early that upon breaking 
its shell it immediately flies away, whereas, on the other 
hand, man's formative period extends over a space of 
more than twenty years, and he does not begin to fly 
until he reaches the age of fourteen or fifteen! 

On every side we see proofs of the disastrous effect of 
forcing; hot-house plants are notably delicate, and ani- 
mals whose growth is forced by unnatural conditions are 
rarely ever sound. The hair may be forced to abnormal 
length, by certain treatment, but as a hairdresser once 
told me. Nature always avenges herself for the disturb- 
ance of her methods, and premature loss is the result. 
With these, and many other instances illustrative of the 
folly of undue pressure in mind, what can we expect 
when we place that most delicate structure, the human 



24 

brnin, in a lu^t-house of leni'uing and subject it to a 
foi'i'iui;- i>i(H'OSS? 

1 am viMv \\o\\ awMiv tlini today there is much in the 
lifo oT cnir nation fnUMilated to shine out in seemingly 
brill in ni \n'oo( of the wisdom of our present method. I 
am thankful tliat this is the case. Heaven forbid that 
we shouUi delay to sound the warning until the bomb 
hail aetunlly burst and naught remained of the once fair 
edifice but an unsightly wreck. Today, on the surface 
perha[)s, all is fair and smooth and we are pluming our- 
selves, as a natiiui, on our public school system. Nor i8 
self-\H'aise nil we hear; uot long ago Lord Ivosebury, 
speaking o'i tlu> wonderful advance the United States 
liad made within a comparatively short time, in commer- 
cial pi>wor, found tlie explanation of this phenomenon 
in our public school system, fostering, as it does, in the 
masses, both independence in action and ambition in 
aim. 

This is nt> dtnd>t true. Why then disturb a method 
from which wt^ reap such brilliant results? Because, to 
(,>ne who looks beneath the surface, this brilliance is tlie 
beauty of the consumptive the sign and seal of early 
decay. Now, then, 1 liud n\yself the target for a storm 
of invective. I am a traitor to my country, some one 
cries, prophesying her ruin. Not so; my faith in the 
sound sense and discretion of our people is great. For 
the present they are blinded l\v the glare of pros- 
perity; but once they can be inducetl to face the actual 
condition of atTairs, they will institute such changes as 
shall save our youth for future greatness. 

America is, as yet, an infant among nations—let us 
bear that in mind. What are om> or two hundred years 



25 

as a test of endurance? What are several hundred as a 
final proof? Why, it is only a few years, comparatively 
speaking, since Columbus was looking us up with a spy- 
glass—only a few years since this entire country was a 
wilderness of solemn forests, lighted by the glare of the 
war-dance fire; of richly carpeted valleys where the deer 
were wont to graze; and of towering mountains wliose 
rocky cliffs hurled back the defiance of the war whoop. 

Even today, in those grey old worlds across the sea, 
there are many people who think of us as still chid in a 
blanket, with- not a harp, bat a tomahawk "within our 
hands." To be sure this ignorance on their part jiroves 
them better fitted for those emblems of national 
infancy — the blanket and the tomahawk — than we; but 
it also serves to remind us of our youth as a nation. 

" What of that!" you cry. "See what we have accom- 
plished!" 

I know; I know; it makes a brave list and I love to run 
it o'er. It begins away back; we didn't wait for numbers, 
but commenced when there were but a handful of us — a 
little handful that had just scrambled out of the sea and 
perched on the extreme edge of this continent, of which we 
knew nothing, beyond the dark forest fringe that hemmed 
us in — back in 1773, by our being nnssy to our elders, 
and saying we didn't want their old tea and wouldn't 
have it. Our swift next came when, in 1776, we threw 
off i)arental authority; then in 1812 we raised our flag 
on the liigh seas and proved that every word of the 
Declaration of 1776 was underlined; in 1846 we took 
another child into our household and said " hands off " 
to those from whose bondage she had escaped. In 1865 
we settled a family quarrel, and later reconstructed the 



26 

disturbed portion of our household, and cemented the 
two pieces that had been temporarily severed; in 1898 
we took our i^lace among the nations of the world, raised 
the banner of humanity and made even scoffers (who. 
themselves unworthy, cannot recognize nobility in 
others) realize that we are a power to be reckoned with 
in the adjustment of republics, kingdoms, and empires. 
In 1900 we proved that our shield was, as yet, untar- 
nished, and our Hag, like the good knight, " without fear 
and without reproach." Not only have we proven our 
collective dignity, but we have won admiration for indi- 
vidual worth, xlt the court of St. James, as well as at 
Berlin and other seats of government, we liave been so 
honorably, so ably and so graciously represented that 
the word American has come to stand for a high type of 
manhood; while in all the recent diplomatic manipula- 
tions entailed by our affairs with Spain and with China, 
we have had cause for honest pride, since we, as well as 
others, have realized that no potentate was ever more 
qualified to uphold the high standard of a christian gen- 
tleman — to show forth that commingling of cool sense 
and tender compassion; of sound morality without prig- 
ishness; intellectuality without pedantry; that combi- 
nation of simplicity and frankness with dignit}" and 
reserve, than our beloved President; and 1 trow not one 
among all the heads of peoples on the face of the globe 
today has been more respected and admired, alike by 
friend and (honest) foe, than he. 

When we think on all these things, we wax proud, 
and then cometli danger. "Let him that thinketh he 
standeth take heed lest he fall.'' Supposing we grout 
that all is well now. what of the future? Ere long we 



27 

of the present generation! perfect as we undoubtedly 
are — will have passed on. Who is to take our place? 
The youth of today. And how are they being prepared 
for their coming responsibilities? As the twig is bent, 
the tree is inclined; and if the twig is bent to breaking, 
the tree is going to be a crochety, feeble affair. Are 
our schools of today calculated to turn out men and 
women strong in brain and strong in principle? I 
refer to our schools as a whole; but as the mass of our 
people receive their education in the public schools, I 
refer especially to them. 

I do not expect any one to accejjt my single testimony 
in answer to so momentous a question; in matters that 
concern the people, the people should testify. My voice 
is but one of a million; you can hear the others if you 
will but listen. Hardly a day passes but what some 
important testimony in this case comes to me. 

Lately, it was this story : A mother in a large western 
city found her patience with the public school methods 
worn threadbare, and took up that which is mightier 
than the sword, in defense of some of the wrongs from 
which her family, in common with others, were suffer- 
ing. In the article which she wrote, she stated that she 
and her husband hardly knew what it was to have an 
evening to themselves, for they were obliged to help 
their children learn the numerous and lengthy lessons 
which they brought home from school. 

" We felt we were paying a school tax for having our 
children t-iught, and yet we were obliged to spend the 
little time we have together at home, in teaching,'' she 
said. 

Even with that, there was complaint at the school; 



28 

although her children were no dullards, yet with all the 
help they received at home they could not master the 
work. In the article this mother wrote, she called the 
attention of the public to the number of children who 
had broken dovvU during their school days, and asked if 
such crowding of young brains should be allowed to 
continue. 

The superintendent of schools in this particular city 
was a man high in Masonic rank, and otherwise influ- 
ential, and fearing to antagonize him and his faction, 
one of the papers refused to print the article. Two 
others had the courage to print it, however, and one 
called especial attention to it by inclosing it in blue 
lines and writing an excellent editorial. That it struck 
a responsive chord was manifest by the signs of grati- 
tude shown its author. Women who were strangers to 
her — women who themselves feared to speak their minds 
in public* on the subject — drove up to her door and, as it 
were, whispered their thanks. 

Now let us turn from this matter of broken health to 
some other points. Even if our children were able to 
stand the mental and nervous strain, there are other 
objections of the most serious nature to our present 
school system. Educators are learning, more and more, 
that the study about things is not sufficient; there must 
be object lessons also; practice as well as theory. 

The failure to remember this accounts largely for 
another faihire on the part of the children after they 
come out of school. Indeed it often seems as if they are 
by their training actually unqualified for life, instead of 
being qualified. Could the Solons who compile our 
elaborate curriculum be prevailed upon not to try and 



29 

cover the entire universe of learning — could they be in- 
duced to select for the attention of students a few vigor- 
ous fundamental branches, reserving the less common 
and less needful studies for those who wish to follow 
especial lines, the entire school work might not only be 
performed during the school hours, but those hours 
could be shortened, and more time left for the practical 
work which every parent should teach his child to 
perform, and more time also for the fostering and 
strengthening of home ties. 

Again and again, in talking over their children with 
me, parents have complained of some serious defect in 
the character or in the education as far as it had pro- 
gressed. 

" Can't you remedy it at home? " I ask, "devise some 
training toward that especial end? " 

The almost invariable answer is : 

" Oh no! there's no chance for that; all their time in 
school and out is taken up by their studies." 

Is it not amazing that we, a free, intelligent people, 
will go on paying out money to keep ujj a system which 
is i)eculiarly well adapted to make our children both 
selfish and unpractical? To keep them oftentimes at 
studies for which they have no ability, and of which 
they have no need, while branches for which they have 
marked taste, and whose study would advance their in- 
terests in life, are neglected? 

I am very well aware, as I write, of the existence of 
two classes of parents, both of which would unite in 
ox)posing any such salutary step as shortening the school 
hours; the one consists of foolish people, incapable of 
discerning what is for the best good of their children, 



30 

or perhaps too indolent or unprincipled to be willing to 
perform their duty toward them — the other, of people so 
overburdened by the cares of life that they have neither 
time nor strength to train crude effort, and no money 
to risk in careless, immature labor. These two classes 
complain that unless their children are kept at school 
long hours, and then sent home with work to occupy 
them, they are running the streets and getting into 
mischief. The problem of the parent who has no 
right to children, and of the overworked parent who is 
oppressed and thwarted by unjust conditions, is not new^ 
by any means. Later on in this article I have a sug- 
gestion to ofiPer for the care of those children whose 
parents are tlins unable to perform their duty. 

This mention of parf^nts brings us to another point 
in our objection and this is the weakening of family 
ties. That this most lamentable evil must result directly 
from our present school system can readily be seen. 
The long absence from home; the return, laden with 
work of an engrossing nature, demanding quiet and 
seclusion, must separate the children, in large measures, 
from the affairs of home, and this separation must of 
necessity result in a certain degree of alienation and 
indifference. 

In some of the cities in which I have lived I have 
found it all but impossible to strike a responsive chord 
in the teacher's heart when I have pleaded for the pres- 
ervation of the home hour for games, or reading aloud, 
or fireside chat; or the afternoon for country excursions, 
picnics, drives or rides. Even where no open objection 
has been made to my setting asicle the children's studies 
occasionally for anything of this kind, I have felt the 



31 

teacher's unspoken thought, that I was making the 
important give way to the trivial. The plea for time 
for children to perform certain home tasks — to learn 
sewing, cooking, gardening, or some other practical 
work, has always met with a more ready response if put 
in the form of my needing their assistance, although it 
was not always possible to make room for it. That last, 
in both instances, has generally devolved upon myself, 
and when I have done it I have been forced to take my 
children out of the regular course and make them feel 
something like aliens in their own classes. Both these 
points are worthy of the gravest consideration, and 
indeed are receiving it, in some directions, though the 
blame is not always laid at the right door. 

I was deeply impressed by the following sentence, 
which I ran across lately in the London Spectator, in 
an article on the relationship of parent and child: " The 
complications of advancing civilization do not strengthen 
the primitive ties; the conditions of life in the present 
day put a great strain on the parental bond and in many 
instances, alas, snap it altogether." That being the 
case, and I hardly think any one who reflects deeply 
will deny this, and the importance of these ties — their 
developing, strengthening, and ennobling influence being 
allowed, to say nothing of God's manifest intention in 
creating them — is it not madness on our part to foster 
and uphold a system which tends to hasten the very 
ruin we so gravely apprehend? 

During the recent visit which many places in our 
country have received from the President there was 
considerable to set earnest brains a-throbbing. One of 
the San Francisco dailies strack a fine note, I thought, 



32 

in an editorial in which it said that with due considera- 
tion for all the apt, able and tactful addresses that Mr. 
McKinley had made, about the best thing he had done 
for the youth of our land wns to teach them a touching 
lesson of the strength and beauty of the domestic tie. If 
I might add something to this, I would say that, to my 
mind, after due consideration of all the evidences of 
loyal devotion shown our President, by youth and ma- 
turity, along his pathway, the most beautiful tribute to 
him, and to the good dwelling in their own hearts, was 
their quick response to hiui as an individual — to the 
father avIio had been bereaved, to the husband whose 
eyes ever anxiously watched — ever lovingly followed the 
sweet-faced woman he calls by the sacred name of wife. 
As long as the hearts of the people throb in response to 
such appeals, there is hope for the future. 



PART II. 

THE GEOWING IMMORALITY OF CHILDREN. 

However urgent the foregoing topics may be, their 
importance dwindles into insignificance when compared 
with that of which we must speak in this division. The 
Book, which has long been a beacon-light for the greatest 
nations on earth, says: " For what shall it profit a man 
if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul." And 
this solemn question is the one we must now ask. 

If our young people could stand the mental strain 
imposed by their school work; if they were not rendered 
impractical by their devotion to theory, to the exclusion 
of practice, and if the strength of their home ties were 
not impaired by the absorption of time and interest 
elsewhere, there would still be much to say. In treating 
the points upon which we have just touched, we have 
arraigned the school system, holding that it tends 
directly to work injury in these regards; but in the 
matter which we are now about'to take up, I hardly 
think we can find the schools responsible. That our 
educational system can be changed for the better in most 
respects I am certain; but the particular evil to which I 
now refer exists in even more virulent form outside 
than inside the school districts. While not arraigning 
educators as chiefly resj^onsible, I would nevertheless 
press this matter upon their attention, and implore their 
aid in the cure of this moral disease. 

Many articles on sociology, especially those dealing 
directly with reforms, are colored by despondency when 
speaking of the making over of men and women; but 
almost all agree in feeling that hope lies with the chil- 



34 

dren. It should be so; the cloudiest face, when brood- 
ing over theditBcult}^ of weaning the mature sinner from 
his baseness, should brighten into sunshine at thought 
of the children. What may we not make of them ! In- 
heritance presses downward with fearful force it is true, 
but even that load though may be lifted if we use such 
good levers as prayer, watchfulness and judgment. But 
if we do not — if through our godlessness, carelessness 
and folly we allow children to come up at haphazard, 
how can we look the future in the face? What is to 
become of our rivers and lakes if our springs are 
poisoned ? 

Those who have studied the youth of our land are 
already cognizant of the fact tliat a pestilence, more 
virulent than plague or cholera, has attacked them, I 
should think it unnecessary to add proof, were it not for 
the fact that a large number of unmarried or childless 
people (and unhappily the majority of our educators are 
in this class) are not aware of the extent to which this 
evil has gone. Even many parents, heedless or over- 
confident of their children's virtue, are ignorant of the 
fact that the plague has broken out in their very midst. 

Personally I cannot testify in favor of private schools 
over and against public schools. In my childhood I was 
sent to the fashionable seminary of the city in which I lived. 
Later on, becoming offended with one of my teachers, I 
withdrew, and, after a period of private instruction, went 
to the high school, and lastly, for a time, to a university. 
A number of my classmates at the seminary were exceed- 
ingly vulgar girls, and because I disliked their remarks 
and insinuations, most of which I but faintly compre- 
hended, they dubbed me " The Good." At neither the 



35 

high school nor university did I see or hear fin y thing 
impure. 

But, although this was my personal experience, from 
all I have been able to learn, on every side, I am in- 
clined to think: 

First. Tliat the children of families standing high 
in the social scale are, as a general thing, less given to 
vulgarity and immorality than sucJi children as make 
up the majority of the j^ublic school classes. 

Second. That when the children of educated parents 
indulge in vulgarity, as a general thing they do so more 
covertly than common children, thereby rendering it 
more destructive for themselves, but less contagious. 

Third. That vulgarity and immorality are more com- 
mon in our primary and grammar schools than in our 
high schools, colleges and universities, owing to the weed- 
ing out of the inferior puijils from year to year. 

Fourth. That vulgarity and immorality v/hen prac- 
ticed in the latter schools, are more covert and therefore 
more destructive to the individual, though the rank and 
file are less exposed to contagion, by reason of their 
secretiveness. 

My conclusions may be at variance with those of other 
f)eople better informed upon this subject than myself, 
but they are drawn from a large number of instances 
which have come to my knowledge in the various places 
where I have lived. 

Let any one who thinks I am exaggerating this evil 
withhold his criticism until he has thoroughly investi- 
gated the matter in the place in which he lives. 

By nature I was unsusjjicious, unobserving, and also 
very ignorant on the vital themes of life. Consequently 



36 

much, no doubt, passed me unnoticed. Not until I 
began sending children to school did I realize that that 
hideous monster Immorality did not Avait for its victims 
to reach mature years. Almost before my babies were 
out of my arms I was warned to keep them from certain 
children near me (one, the little son of an army officer), 
lest they be taught vulgarity. When I moved to Chicago 
and took a house in a delightful suburb, I was cautioned 
to keep my children from a little boy and girl belonging 
to a family who lived in a handsome place over the way, 
as these children were already living a hideously cor- 
rupt life. It appeared that the mother had been told of 
it, but she resented tlie information. She and the father 
were fashionable people, (if gross private life, so the 
children were to be pitied, and I did pity them; but I 
told my maids to admit the smallpox any day, rather than 
admit those children inside my gate. I watched my little 
ones with lynx eyes, without letting them know it; but my 
two oldest had started to school, and there they encoun- 
tered this filthy trouble. Several times on his way 
home (I always looked for the children at just such a 
moment) my little son was thrown to the ground and 
commanded to expose himself. He was released when 
he resisted, but another child might have yielded. 
Hero, as in many other schools, there were no suitable 
closet arrangements — the boys going down into a base- 
ment where there was a continuous row of seats divided 
off by no parliiions. Occasionally a teacher kept watch 
here, but more frequently the children were left alone, 
and under such favorable circumstances for the propaga- 
tion of vice, it flourished horribly. 

In other cities, and in somewhat older ranks, even 



37 

worHC/ (;arn() to my lorrificd (;;ir. T}jo corjv<'rHaf ion of 
8()rn(3 of ilio youi){^ l>oo[jlf>, ovorljcaid by my (;}jil(Jrr;ij, 
was sack as misfit he- oxpocted only in f>roili(>lH; fililiy 
jokes and (umundninm (;v<rj ?i,morir/ youn^ ^nrln wc.ro 
not uncommon. In u, I'cav ('.uhch tiin con«f:qiicrj(;oH r)f 
immorality hooamc. ho ovid<;nt tliat younj^ i/h'ln wcro 
asked to Icavfi Hcfjool. One of tin-He eloped and married 
the boy }>eforo tlje hirth of }\(tr (djHd. 

In the village in wlji(;lj I \\v<'j\ for a liine flie ljfij:>pf;n- 
ings were more conspicuous than tliey would \ih.v<t h(;efj 
in a city, and w(t [jeard more of tlier/i; hut I \in.y<', no 
idea thfit it wan any worHe, morally Hpen,kitig. I e.onHjd- 
ered the hcIjooI faculty Hij[>erior in courteny arjd Hy m pa- 
thetic understanding of tljf. desires of the pare^nts and. 
needs of the pupils to that of tiuuiy of tfje schools with 
■which my childre.n had he^trj conner;f.e,fj. Hut thf. 
teachers seemed f;ower I' ;:; lo -,lem the tide of immor- 
ality which at times tlireatened us with a fjltljy delngr;; 
and while many of the pufjils were as clean and whoh?- 
some young folks as one could wish to see., many olliers 
were more or less stained, (jutside of school lljcre 
were several pitiable cases in the village.. Orjf, ?) father- 
less child, whose mother going o(jt \)y i}\(; d;iy. heft 
her much to herself; she was expeih;d from school for 
immojality, arjd later on was the victim of a crime 
involving sever al elderly merj f grandfathers, hitherto 
considered at least respectable;. 

Unfortunately, the community's concern to preserve 
its reputation for godliness seeme/l greate.r than its 
concern for its children; consequently the officials of 
the [)lace, instead of aiding those of the next village, 
who came over to inquire about the matter, tried to 



38 

► 

husli it up; and some one was even base euough to go 

bail for tb« i-liiei offeiider, a wliite bearled roue, v,ho 
should have been huDg to the uearest tree. 

Tliis girl of whom I am speaking — a child barely 
twelve years of age — and her younger sister were village 
problems. Tbey were a menace to the community, in 
as much as they solicited and enticed, and many of the 
village boys joined them in immorality. 

Another instance was that of the children of a mother 
who, after long coutinued unfaithfulness, at last went to 
her partner in crime. The oldest girl, eleven or twelve 
years old, had charge of the family. Often she was 
seen on the streets in the evening and ber conduct was 
the same as that of her companion, the little girl of 
wiiom I have just spoken. Tbe pathos of tbe situation 
was intensified by the faith of the father, who clung to 
the hope that God would send his wife home repentant; 
he was quite read}^ to forgive her. 

"He is not right in bis head," some one said to me; 
" he was kicked by a horse a while ago." 

"It is a pity," I answered, "some of the rest of us 
couldn't be kicked in the head, if such love and Chris- 
tian charity would result." 

The disposition and proper care of these miserable 
little waifs was a problem with some of the tender 
hearted, conscientious people there. A woman with 
children could not receive such morally diseased little 
ones into her family, but oh that some motherly, child- 
less woman might have taken them to her heart and 
striven, with God's help, to heal them ! 

Some of the village lads sixteen and seventeen years 
of age visited Chinatown for low purposes, bringing 



39 

moral and physical contagion back with them; others 
were seen openly parading the streets with abandoned 
women from a Spanish-Mexican village near by and 
from the large city which was not far distant. 

At a recent lecture I heard Dr. Jordan of Stanford 
quoted as saying that a large proportion of our youth 
were morally ruined before entering university life, and 
most of us know how it is with many during their 
university career. 

It is not so very long since a secret individual vice 
threatened the destruction of one of our well-known 
colleges. A large number of the students became too 
ill to prosecute their studies properly. As there was 
no legitimate reason for sickness, a strict investigation 
followed, and this elicited many confessions, and re- 
sulted in such a number of withdrawals that the in- 
stitution was, for a time, seriously crippled. 

I spoke to a friend of mine on this awful subject 
some months ago, and she seemed a little sceptical. 
Lately, however, she came to me and said that, while 
riding in the street car from one village to another, she 
saw in large, legible characters upon a pretty cottage on 
the roadside the most depraved words, evidently written 
by a child. Hamlin Garland, in one of his stories, 
speaks of obscenity scrawled in the dust of the road 
by passing children, on their way to school from the 
different farmhouses. 

Several of my acquaintance living near vacant stables 
have told me of seeing school children enter these 
places at different times, and of learning, upon investi- 
gation, enough to shock and terrify any one to whom 
purity is sacred. 



40 

Not contotit with tlio individaal sin wliicli oventaally 
eii^^ull'a boily ami bouI, and pliysio.iUy iiic.liiio.s toward 
the insane^ asyhim, some poor wretclied children have 
takon a Hliorter cut into the hell fires of Bensuality, by 
l(Mii'nin<x, I'roui whom God alone knows, an unuaraable 
vice, which is said to Inive come from France. I cannot 
think of this witliout a shuddcu'. 1 have never had it 
explained to me, and hope I never shall, but I was 
warned on tiiis account against some children in my 
neighborhood — poor miserable looking creatures, whose 
faces told an awful story. 

I can go no farther; I am heartsick. The subject 
leaves me witli a bad taste in my mind. I feel as if I 
had dijjped my pon in the stnver. Surely I have brought 
forward enough proof, but if not, there is nlas! an abund- 
ance of evidence on every hand. 

Now there should be three parts to any dissertation 
on an evil; First, the proof that it exists; second, the 
caus<^ for il; third, tln^ remedy. Only the willfully 
blind can refuse to be convinced of the existence of this 
immorality among our children; but as to its cause even 
a wise man may go astray. We can, however, mention 
certain things which toud in that directiim, although 
they may not be llu^ solo (pauses of that which we de- 
plore. 

13(ifore entering upon this partial list of causes I wish 
to say that, in treating of tln^ sins of children, 1 have 
not mentioned profanity (which I have sometimes heard 
from girls ns well as from boys) because that is more 
univers.'illy locognized as an evil than the others upon 
which 1 have dilated, and being a more op(»n, and h'ss 
delicate transgression it is more easily dealt with. With 



41 

repjard to all these vices many people are UTider the 
impresf-:iou that their locality in worse than others, aud 
in pursuance of this idea I have known families to 
move from one place to another solely to put their 
children in a better environment. 

There is no doubt something in this. There must be, 
for it is noticeable in business relations, as well as in 
those of children. The state or region that dates its 
early settlement to any cause likely to bring together 
people of a loose way of life must wait long before it can 
enjoy the pure, fresh air of integrity whicli belongs to 
those communities who date their beginnings to a more 
honorable ancestiy. Most of those countries and regions 
that were originally penal settlements, or gold fields, 
testify today to the truth of this assertion. Climatic 
conditions are found to have weight also in determin- 
ing the character of individuals as well as of nations; 
and, all other things being equal, we may look for the 
more vigorous type of morality in the more vigorous 
climate. 

Still I am inclined to think that, after having given 
these broad differences due weight, we gain but little in 
this respect by a change of aVjode. I have never lived 
in New England, and I still hope that in that land of 
original sterling worth we may find more backbone in 
the matter of principle today than in some other places 
I have known, but as far as my experience in the matter 
of residence does go, there is not very much choice 
when considering tlje subject of immorality among chil- 
dren, and this fact leads me to conclude that it is 
widely spread. 

Such being the case let us consider the cause — for 



42 

cause there must be. To begin with tho h^ssor, our 
schools, in this regnnl as in others, are in great need of 
change. For one thing there are, I 1 1 link, too few teacli- 
ers — for sympathy in teaching and for proper snper- 
vision. As a matter of course there is such a thing as 
a survoihince that provokes evil, and in this, as in all 
else, good intent must walk hand in hand with wisdom. 

Another cause, perhaps, from whicli we sutter, is too 
limited playgrounds. In a schcH)! which my chiUlren 
attended in a large city on the Pacitic Ooast, the pnpils 
were packed like sardines in the yard at recess. For 
fear of accidt»nt the most vigorous rnh>s wt>re maJe, 
pndiibiting all sports i^f an athletic nature; for a l)oy 
even to chase another about the yard was a misde- 
meanor. Hence tlie children, denied a proper outlet 
for spirits and energy; limited by nature as to proper 
subjects for conversation, and cK^sely associated with 
those who continually see and hear the worst at home, 
sank into immorality; obscenity became rife among 
them. 

Here is something else of which I learned — some- 
thing that cannot fail to work evil: In a st^hool some 
twenty mih^s fri>m my present home, a secret soci» ty is 
in force among the children. By its laws no mend)er is 
allowed to reveal any of the happenings in anil about 
the school, on penalty t>f certain punishments, more 
or less severe. Furthermore, pressure of a kind felt 
by children, is brought to bear upon them on enter- 
ing the school, to join this society, and very few dare 
brave the odium of refusal. Frott^cted by the false 
idea of brotherhood and honor inculcated by such an 
organization, it is almost impossible for a teacher to 



43 

search out ovildoern, and yot, strange to Buy, u[> t(j the 
last accounts that reached me — a few months ago — no 
vigorous measures liad ht^en adopttid by the teachers for 
the breaking of thin (jorrupting bond. 

]jot}j ov<*>rlaxneHH and ovrrigidity, in tlie government 
of the young, n,ro oft<in caiineH of i'nWnfd. Wli<'n one 
comfis to a study of tfiis Hul^ject, tfje f)lifjdneHH of tJiose 
who shouhl be as wise as serpents arjd as harmless a» 
doves is amazing. I mn thirjking now of two vilhiges 
with which I becam(» familiar a wliile agr>; th(^ one is 
cljarjicteriz*^! by tljo Mfixican-lndian ( wiifj perfiafm a 
sligfjt strain of HpaniHli Ujrovvn in) and, as far as moral 
tone is concerned, is a most degraded place; tlje otfjc/r, 
an American village, was originally a Methodist settle- 
ment; it is, in tlj<'> main, a kindly, njoral place, though 
sadly lacking in breadth and christian charity. At first 
its rules were so rij^^id and its surveilarice of [>rivate life 
BO impertinent that no one of proper spirit could endure 
a residence there, and even now that lhe> rigor is relaxed 
as far as aggressive superintendence is concerned, there 
is, it seems tr> me, an almost utter lack of sympafhy 
with the desire and need for amusement a^jong the 
half-grown lads and lasses, and so it comes tr> pass 
that, lacking suitable diversion, many of them f^ass all 
Vjounds, and in improper places arjd imf)roper ways 
satisfy their inclinations. The two places stand, to my 
mind, for ill-mated parents, between whose overlaxity 
on the one side, and overseverity on tfje other, the chil- 
dren are ruined. 

But althougli we may place some of this nv/l'ul trouble 
ux>on schools and communities, the main responsibility 
no doubt lies nearer home. Parents are criminally 



44 

careless ofttimes, in the very beginning, giving their 
children over to the care of unprincipled nurses. A 
physician once told me that many children were ruined 
by servants, careless parents, of a coarse grain of mind, 
sometimes letting quite sizeable boys sleep with them, 
when the limitations of house-room seemed to demand 
crowding. In addition to this there is, in families of 
the lower class, a certain jesting about one another that 
is calculated to inculcate a most unfavorable precocity 
in boys and girls and to diminish that sense of delicacy, 
which should be most carefully preserved in them. Such 
parents seem unable to comprehend the beauty of an 
opposite course — that of prolonging to its utmost extent 
the period when children give no thought to sex; nor 
do they realize that later on when, at the age of 
puberty, this idea begins to dawn, they should turn it, by 
the tenderest care, tact and ceaseless watchfulness, into 
channels which tend in the direction of developing a 
noble manhood in their boys, and a noble womanhood in 
^*-« • their girls. The May, 1091, Atlantic contains a most 
'Of beautiful article on this subject. Every parent and 
teacher should read it. 

There is no doubt that the sins of the parents are 
visited on the offspring. Can the pure grow from 
the impure? Occasionally, just as in nature, we 
sometimes see sweet, white flowers rise from out the 
mire, but methinks these exceptions are so rare that 
they bat serve to prove the rule, and a large number of 
children are tainted ere ever they come into the world. 
As far as I know, man is, in some respects, one of the 
lower animals; the beasts of the field set him a com- 
mendable example by resx)ecting maternity. Man's 



46 

conscience has for too long a period been soothed to 
sleep by the doctrine that the physical cannot be 
brought under absolute control. In place of this, he 
should be taught that enforced maternity never has 
been productive of purity in the offspring, and never 
will be; that self-indulgence begets self-indulgence, and 
that the physical can and should be the servant of the 
spiritual. Let those whose conscience is "not dead, 
but sleeping," rouse to this truth, and consider the 
responsibility they assume when they refuse to recog- 
nize it in the married life. 

Among the lower classes where the hard necessities 
of home-making under the limitations of space exist — 
where families are too closely huddled together, and a 
consequent carelessness is engendered — I have been 
told that children see and hear far too much, and some 
of the most sacred relations of life become to them mere 
objects of curiosity and imitation. I had my attention 
called to this danger of the tenement and of tiny houses 
one day when I was speaking of a certain little child 
to an acquaintance. " She knows too much," said the 
woman. "She knows more than you or I. There's 
nothing in connection with the coming of life that could 
be told her." 

It seemed as if the child's very aspect changed as I 
listened to these words; her pretty baby contour (she 
was but four years old) shrank, and in place of the little 
innocent I had fancied her, I saw before me a weird 
object — nor child nor woman, nor old nor young, only 
something uncanny, uncleanly. By nature I love the 
little ones, and long to take them to my heart; a few 
years ago, before I heard or knew anything of this, I 



46 

could hardly pass one in the street without stopping for 
word or caress. Now my heart aches as I look at them — 
poor babies! to have sold their birthright of innocence 
and beauty for — oh for what! 

Perhaps I exaggerate the number who are polluted 
as I describe. God grant I do! In the first shock of 
such a revelation as this of immorality among children 
(and it came to me only a few years ago) one can 
hardly see clearly enough to count accurately. Grief 
and horror are always pessimistic, and even a buoyant 
nature has to struggle against this tendency, in contem- 
plating an evil of such magnitude as this. But in my 
most depressed moments, when it has seemed to me as 
if almost all our sweet lambs had gone astray and so 
few were still worthy to be carried in the dear Lord's 
arms, I have found comfort in the story of Elijah. I 
can today, I think, enter with swift sympathy into his 
heavy heart, Avhen he withdrew from the world and sat 
one side, abandoned for the time to leaden despondency. 

He had tried to stem the tide; had sounded his warn- 
ing; had rushed hither and thither over the field of the 
battle of Life trying to instill fainting and traitorous 
soldiers with loyalty to the great Captain and His cause; 
had stood in front of the deserting hosts and tried to 
arrest their flight; but they had turned upon him; they 
would have slain him had he not escaped. Then, weary 
and hurt in body, and still more weary and hurt in soul, 
he crept off into the wilderness like a wounded deer, 
and there gazed with mental vision upon the ruin and 
desolation of all he loved best, and the victory of all 
that was infamous. What wonder that he cried to God 
tiiat all had gone; only he, sitting solitary and alone, 



47 

broken in spirit, crushed in heart, was left to serve his 
Maker. And then came the answer, calm, serene — a 
sweet, clear, steadfast note — "Yet I have left seven 
thousand in Israel; all the kuees which have not bowed 
unto Baal." 

And so I take heart once more. God has not let Satan 
have all our children. There is a large remnant left; a 
remnant of babies as sweet, as pure as the angels; of 
little ones in whose large, wondering eyes we catch a 
glimpse of the " land of the leal;" whose baby voices 
lure us to a better life, and the hold of whose precious, 
tender little hands is the strongest on earth. God grant 
that we may so learn to deal with our children — to train 
and guide and protect them, that this large remnaut 
may wax greater with each succeeding year, until it shall 
embrace not only all of babyland, but all of childhood 
and youth as well. When that day comes we shall 
indeed be a nation among the peojjles of the world — a 
nation of brave men, and women beautiful in the loftiest 
sense of the word. 

And what is the road to this end? First of all, to ask 
ourselves this question again and again. We forget to 
do this when we arrange our stupid curriculum — when 
we govern our schools in a haphazard, careless fashion. 
The question brings us up with a sharp jerk. For what 
are we training? To cram certain mathematical prob- 
lems, certain facts in geography into young brains as a 
charge is crammed down the mouth of a cannon? or 
are the mathematics, the geography, and so on, but 
incidental — a means to an end, and that end the devel- 
oxjment of the child's intelligence; the opening of his 
eyes to the beauty and usefulness possible in life; his 



48 

relationship to life, and obligation to liis Creator? Is 
his training designed merely to teach him certain facts, 
or is it intended for the developing of his moral acute- 
ness; his strength of self-control, and for the fostering 
of the idea of duty and beauty, in even the smallest 
concerns of life? 

Is education a mere acquiring oE something for the 
individual, or is it an enlargening of the mental scope 
and moral vision — a strengthening of ties, first of all to 
God, then to the family, and then to that combination 
of families which we term our country, and even more 
broadly to the large human family — that brotherhood 
of man, which comprehends all countries? You may 
say that most of this is the work of the Church. So it 
is, more distinctly, and by more direct methods; but I 
insist that unless the recognizable trend of the school 
is in this direction, it would better close its doors. Some 
one said to me the other day that the opportunities of 
our forefathers for character building were better than 
ours, and I am not sure rut what he was right; for when 
a boy was sent to an old dame school he was taught to 
fear God and the multiplication table. Now I was 
taught to fear tlie multiplication table, but had I depend- 
ed upon the school for any prompting toward religion, 
I might today be an infidel. 

In a recent sermon in San Francisco Dr. H. S. Min- 
turn (moderator of the late General Assembly) spoke 
warmly as to this matter of religion in the public 
schools. He approached the subject with an apology, 
and a protest against being considered disloyal. We 
are terribly afraid of even the suspicion of speaking 
against this system. It has been our vaunt and boast 



49 

for so long that we hardly dare look at it with candid 
eyes, and certainly dare not prick it— this blister of 
national conceit— for fear of the enraged blow which 
sudden pain might cause our patient to inflict upon us. 
But unless we do nerve ourselves to examine into the 
matter honestly, intelligently, and prayerfully, our 
so-called national strength is in a fair way to become 
our national weakness. 

Here is Dr. Minturn's warning: "God forbid that I 
should say an ill word against our public school system, 
the safeguard of our nation, but is the educational ma- 
chinery subsidiary to the only worthy end of fashioning 
character? Have we, so morbidly afraid of uniting 
Church and State, gone so far as to disunite God from 
the State? This is a most serious question. The fate 
of our sons and daughters is involved and the kingdom 
of God in our country is involved. It is not an organ- 
ized skepticism that threatens, but a God-forgotten 
secularism." 

The editorial, in which this notable paragraph is quot- 
ed, went on to speak, in a well written article, of the 
difficulty attendant upon the bringing of religion into 
the schools— returning practically to the old theocratic 
government when Church and State were united, and 
Church was supreme. I am reminded here of a state- 
ment I read the other day to the effect that there were 
two classes of people: the one class busies itself with 
the most elaborate and logical setting forth of the rea- 
sons why a certain thing cannot be done, while the other 
class gets right up and does it, without waiting to ex- 
plain. In this matter I belong to the latter class, for I 
should certainly put the Bible back into the schools 
without loss of time. 



50 

In an article on Social Progress, by Prof. Ely, which 
I read in this year's May Cosmopolitan, he quotes Pres- 
ident Eliot as saying: "No educational system can be 
successfully carried on without education in morals, 
and no education in morals is possible without a relig- 
ious life." Again he quotes these words from General 
Brinkerhoff, who has given a lifetime to the work of 
prison reform: "I want to put it on record with all the 
emphasis I can command that if we are to make any 
large progress in the reformation of prisoners, or in the 
prevention of crime, or in the betterment of mankind, 
we must utilize more fully than we have heretofore the 
religious element which is inherent in the universal 
heart of man." 

These are noteworthy paragraphs from noteworthy 
sources, and it seems to me they are mighty testimony 
in favor of re-introducing religion into our schools. 

In our stupid blundering we have too often con- 
founded religion with the Church; and the Church has 
ceased to stand for the pure, Christian association our 
Saviour founded — the association whose members Paul 
rebuked so earnestly for calling themselves by the name 
of some human leader. Against sectarianism we should 
bar our public school gates even as Stephen Girard 
barred the gates of his college. Sectarianism may be 
well enough in its place for some people, though I have 
no use for it. In itself it is harmless, but when it is 
confounded with religion, then it works injury. We are 
hedged about with man-made creeds; and the attention 
of great bodies of ministers is too often given to trying 
and condemning some fellow minister, for not believing 
in the damnation of unbaptized infants, or some similar 



51 

stuff and nonsense. But albeit we may be somewhat 
confused by such evidence on the part of those who 
should be our spiritual guides, that they are unbaptized 
in Christian grace and charity, and in far greater need 
of damnation than the poor little babies, yet we are not 
left in the dark as to the definition of religion, pure and 
undefiled. 

The Book of Books tells us what it is in language 
so simple and clear thatthe wayfaring man, though a fool, 
need not err therein: "To visit the fatherless and 
widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted 
from the world." On top of this comes the direction: 
" Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatso- 
ever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, what- 
soever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virt- 
ue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." 

The failure to teach this sublime doctrine in our 
homes and in our schools is the main reason for the 
horrible degeneracy of our youth. The Bible in the 
public schools! Aye, the Book that many of the world's 
greatest thinkers, after the most elaborate researches 
into the literature of the ages, have decided contains 
the only perfect code of morals ever known! That is 
the Book we want in all our training schools for the 
young; and whoever objects to this is a traitor to his 
country's deepest need, I care not by what name he 
may call himself — philosopher, politician or statesman. 

There are many who ascribe the loss of the Bible in 
our public schools to the Romanists. It is said that 
after working for years they at last prevailed on our 
politicians to consent to this ruin. How subtle the 



52 

argument before which those who should have stood 
their ground, yielded. The public schools supported by 
taxation, so the tempter said, must not teach what the 
people oppose; the United States having been founded 
in the name of freedom, in order to give different creeds 
and beliefs equal rights, must not compel all to support 
one sect. 

What of that? Was not the United States from the 
first avowedly a Protestant country? Is she not so today 
among the nations of the earth? Why then in the train- 
ing of her youth should she be more hampered by this 
protest of her Romanist citizens against the reading of 
the Bible than she would be by the protest of her Mor- 
man citizens against the pure doctrines of Christ, which 
are opposed to polygamy? If it is true that the Rom- 
anists object to the soul-inspiring teachings we have 
quoted above, they are as clearly the enemies of their 
country's good as the Mormans, and should be given no 
more heed in the direction of our schools than the 
latter. 

Perhaps they will deny that they do object to such 
unsectarian teachings as I have advocated. They may 
deny that it is due to their influence that tlie Bible was 
excluded from our public schools. It is a historical 
fact that they have wrought this evil in our land, 
and thereby have done us a greater injury than 
they did the Netherlands at the time when Philip II 
was lighting that unhappy land, from one end to the 
other, with the bodies of Christian martyrs — for when 
the Bible went out of our public schools morality went 
also. 

The day cries for reform. Let it not be tardy in com- 



53 

ing, lest it come too late. Of old the monster that de- 
voured children was the very embodiment of iniquity 
and all things horrible. He is no less today. We have 
seen him in our midst, have actually witnessed the 
destruction of the children, witnessed the despair of 
parents as their little ones were lost before their very 
eyes. What are we to do? In the name of all we hold 
most dear, fight him to the very death, with the only 
weapon that will neither break nor bend in the contest — 
the sword of the spirit. 



TART III. 

HUaOESTIONS AB TO llEMEDIES. 

Without protonding to i^roposo romodios for all tho 
errors and ovils I have noted in the forogoing pagoa, 
particularly for those which belong more especially to 
the realm of pedagogy, I may perhaps olYer some sug- 
gestions which will be not without value. To take up 
the points in somewhat the same order in which they 
have been mentioned, oar crowded curriculum lirst 
claims attention. Let us bear in mind, in whatever is 
said, that school boards are not deliberately antagonistic 
to the needs of the people. Their undeniable failure 
to adapt their methods to those needs, and to conserve 
the highcvst interest of the vast army of chihlron for 
whom they o])erate, is generally the result of ignorance 
rather than of cart^lessness, and, as a matter of course, 
is never the result of intention. Unhappily politics, in 
its baneful workings, has not spared our educational 
system; the presence of many incompetent members of 
the school boards, and also of many incompetent 
superintendents and teachers is due to tliis fact, and 1 
would urge upon the American public for our chil- 
dren's good, the separation of politics and the public 
schools. Let these two be divorced, and let us see to 
it, if necessary, that each weds again in another direc- 
tion, that there may be no danger of reunion. 

Many of the members of our present school boards 
are so densely stupid that they call to mind Sydney 
Smith's famous suggestion that the city fathers should 



55 



put their heads together, when he wan told that the 
streets needed paving. We want people fitted for 
their work — women as well as men — on our school 
boards; not excitable, hysterical women, of the type 
who regard opposition as personal insult, but intel- 
lectual, womanly, self-controlled women; intelligent, 
thoughtful mothers — women whose swift intuitions are 
supplemented by careful study of their children's 
needs — such women as can be found by the hundreds 
in woman's clubs. Were some such put on every school 
board, I think we should rapidly come to a better state 
of affairs. 

Another plan that might aid in relieving our congest- 
ed curriculum is borrowed from academies and col- 
leges — that of elective courses. Why could not those 
be introduced into our public schools — courses largely 
determined by the teachers, after some study of the 
pupil, and each course eligible to graduaticm honors? 
Something of this sort is in vogue in our high schools, 
but much more might be done in that direction. 

As for practical life-training work, the home is, after 
all, the best place for that, if the parent is in position 
and has the character to attend to it; but if not, then 
the school should take it in hand, keeping such pupils 
as are not excused at the x>arent's request for this work 
at home, an extra session, and giving them instruction 
at school. Where I am now living, there are several 
excellent teachers in the school my children attend, 
through whose influence i)ractical features of great 
utility have been introduced. One of these instructs a 
Sloyd class; another has instituted a school garden, 
each of whose woll-kejjt beds attest, by their tempting 



56 

vegetables, to the pride that the pupil who has it in 
charge feels in its proper cultivation. Other schools 
that I have known have introduced a sewing class, and 
a cooking class — the latter including instruction in some 
chemistry and in domestic economy. All these branches 
of learning are of value to every one, and especially so 
to a child of the people, and while adding greatly to the 
efficiency of the school work, they add as greatly to its 
interest with all the pupils whom I have known. 

A sympathetic co-operation of school boards, super- 
intendents, teachers and parents would go far toward 
elucidating many of the problems that confront us now, 
and the Mothers' meetings held in some of our school- 
houses are steps in this good direction, especially as they 
enhance the importance of the parents in the eyes of 
the children, and connect them directly with the school 
work. 

But whatever else we do, we must get rid of our poor 
teachers, either by inspiring them with lofty ideals of 
their work, and thereby making good teachers out of 
them, or if that is not possible, by lifting them right 
out of the school, and helping them to find the particular 
niche for which they were formed and fashioned. One 
of our crying needs today is for more and better paid 
teachers — teachers gifted for the work, rather than 
gifted for patient endurance in the way of earning a 
livelihood. It will be said that the state cannot afford 
any increase of her school expenses; in some localities, 
as we know, she has failed to raise the small wage set 
apart for the teachers of today, but I would God might 
give power to my pen — I would I might cry in the ear 
of every state in our beloved land, that the most expen- 



57 

sive thing we can do is to bring up children which we 
must, later on, feed to the awful maw of the peniten- 
tiary, the insane asylum and the imbecile institute. 
Some may object, just here, to my lack of moderation. 
Garrison once said that he would not trouble himself to 
be moderate when dealing with slavery; neither will I 
trouble myself to be moderate when dealing with the 
immorality of children. The subject does not admit of 
moderation. 

We already have many ideal teachers who are accept- 
ing small pay and doing great work, and we recognize 
them wherever they are found. Not long ago I was 
invited to attend a mothers' meeting in a large city 
school; the faculty were strangers to me and most of 
them seemed ordinary enough, but there was one woman 
who stood out from among the rest like a single shin- 
ing star in a cloudy firmament. She had not spoken a 
dozen words before I recognized in her that wonderful 
intuition and sympathy which meant genius for her 
work. If we had more like her, the entire tone of 
our school system would be elevated. As matters 
are now, with so many mediocre teachers, there is 
much blundering in the | training of our children. 
Take the subject of patriotism; to most of our youth 
that word stands for war. And what wonder? about 
the only lessons they receive come on Memorial Day, 
over the graves of men who died in battle, or on the 
Fourth of July, when the orator of the occasion pro- 
claims the Revolutionary feats of our forefathers. Boys 
especially are captivated with this teaching, and patri- 
otism to their minds is a very easy thing; for the 
average boy would rather enter a fight than keep out of 



58 

it; he has plenty of courage to accept a challenge 
though he may be destitute of the finer courage neces- 
sary to decline it. Too rarely do the guardians of our 
youth teach the deeper lessons of patriotism, and these 
are what we chiefly need; for war is but an occasional 
necessity; the notes of trumpet calling to battle are 
heard less and less often, and we are confidently look- 
ing for that day, in the near future, when they shall die 
away to be sounded nevermore. What then? Why, 
then abideth the lessons of peace, and these we should 
be teaching. 

Lately a man, speaking to me of his love for his wife, 
said he would die for her. I repeated this, thinking to 
give her pleasure. She was silent a moment, and then 
said sadly, "It is so much easier to die for one than it 
is to live for one." Now that I have learned that he is 
selfishly thoughtless of her comfort; that he has that 
nasty, cowardly kind of temper that is irritable under 
trifles, that snaps and snarls continually, I understand 
what she meant. 

We should, I think, teach our children that loyalty to 
one's country is very much the same as loyalty to one's 
family and home. Even so small a thing as the scat- 
tering of papers and picnic debris over our pleasure 
grounds is unpatriotic, since it is opposed to the good 
citizenship which takes a pride in its civic home. 

Theft, and all other forms of dishonor — everything 
that serves to drag the family name down into the dust — 
is disloyalty to one's kindred, so everything that tends 
to sully the character, and make the name American a 
reproach, is disloyalty to our country; and just as surely 
every effort toward a character that will do honor to one's 



59 

native land is patriotism of a fine type. We can hire 
men to die for us, if need be, but we can never hire men 
to live for us. 

This idea of citizenship may be introduced into 
school life with marked good effect, both temporary 
and permanent. In the school described in "Arthur 
Bonicastle" there is a notable instance of this. The boys 
there were taught that it is just as dishonorable to pro- 
tect a school criminal as it is to protect a state criminal; 
that every offense against the honor and well being of 
the institution is also an offense against every individual 
in it, and so far from its being mean to bring the culprit to 
justice, it is mean to shield him; that a dishonest, lying 
or impure boy or girl is an offense against each member 
of the school, and also each member of the commu- 
nity to which he or she belongs, and should be so 
regarded and dealt with. 

Another point, and one on which society is slowly 
awakening, is that there is but one standard of purity, 
and by this both boys and men must be measured as well 
ss girls and women. In pursuance of this idea guardians 
of children in the home and at school must be just as 
careful of the boys as of the girls. 

And just here another point arises — a point often 
debated, often combated — namely the State Kindergar- 
ten. For my part I am not only strongly in favor of 
this, but I would even go a step farther and establish in 
connection with every public school a public Creche. 
By means of these three institutions — Creche, Kinder- 
garten and School, the State would be able to train the 
child from its very infancy until it was ready to step 
out into the world and become a wage earner. 



(10 



l')\|>niiiiivnV Ay. IhiI, \'nv l«ntit no iJiiiii loliin^ Mioho 
liillo oiioM rilii (lin nlicnlit mill iillnyii iiiiiil iJiny Imvn, (it 
Mm Mf'O of Um'<M> <>I IOiII, l(MIIII<ltl IIHMO XH'AS )J|/|,|| 11.11 IJio 

hciIiooIm III ( lliiiHl/OiKloiii can iiiiIohim. Oi' ooiiiho iio 
iiindhw woilJiy of iJin ininii^ woiilil, iiiiIiwim iinni Honiril 
4M>ii<liJ,iniiM (t()iii|)(^lln(l licr to Im^ uliHoiil rr«>iii homo, ^ivt^ 
liniM(Mii'o<l (^liMi>(OM iiilo Mm IiiukIm of IIm^MIiiIo; hill wo 
iiiiimIi nlvvityM Ito/n in niiiul (Jwii tlioio m m vmmI lu'iiiy of 
oliildroii wlioMo |MU'oiil>H will iioj, or i^nii ii«>i cmio for 
llioiii; (iMil ill Mmh rorliiio noil, hy ill4^ linl|) oi' <)o(i uiid 
hill iiiiiiiMlor ilio iiiM|»iidil tiMu^hor, I ho Mlitlo <miii, if hIio 
bill will, <lo M(»iiio Mowiii|j; Unit hIiiiII hilor on roHiilt in u 
Inu'voiit oT nohio <^ili'/.onHlii|>. KimuI KmIo Dmif^luM 
Wif.'^fj^in'M " riilMy/' iinil MlM^ wlnit<Min ho ilono in Mio Kin- 
(l(H'fj;iii'l<oii, ovoii with H htrooi lil'o h/ioL of it. Ii(»w niiK^li 
inont wo ooiiM fMioonipliMh it wo t<M>lv tlio hiihy out of 
iiniiiotlMM'ly iiniiK. 

I liiivo ripoKon of our noiwl of toiuihoiH; wo nooil hoiiio- 
ihiiifj; ohio ovon inoro. Would tinit I nii^'^ht innort fin 
lulvortiHoinont in ovory |>upor, lnrf<;o mid hiiimII, tdl ovor 
tlio world. I would put it in tlu^ iiiohI proiiiiiiont pla(M\ 
hi tho lur^MM^t typo, mid in tlio inont altnu^tivo forni; 
" Wmitod l*\ilhorH mid MothoiH, ('liriMlimi pnionhi, 
^il'tod Tor tlioir work, wliioh in tho lol'tiotit (iod Iimm ovor 
intniHtiMl to liiinimi hoini^^; volnntniy pmontM, loving iind 
WHiitinp; ohildron, lo^iirdiiif^ pmonthood lui MiipriMno, 
paHHion (111 iiM^idontal; holiovin^ that in lll(^ iiiattor oT 
pnnMitlnMMl tho propufMilioii of (ho Mpooiox in not tho 
niMiii thiiif^:; thai iiiiIomm ihr Mpooion ho y^iuui ilri propa 
f.',M.tioii in a privato and piil>lio (nilmnily; and that iiitolli 
fL'ont pat'ont h«>od iiiiplioH a looking; lo and proviHi<ni of 
tli(^ inont Tavorahlo oonditioiiii I'or tho onti'Hn(Mw»i' an iin- 



mortiil HOiil upon lliiH^rwvil mI:/i;'<i iJin world. And m(» wn 
Bound ilio rnW ii^nilii: VVanh^d I'^illmrii wlio will hoI n, 
woriliy nx>un|)lo |,(> iilM^ir Honii; nioiiliniii who will rnj^'fud 
ihnii ciiildr-i^n fui <lid (l(»niolin, of old; nioihnrii who 
will hold Un^ir <diildron nuuly lor Iho Unio whnu lin 
coninih, to nnikn up II in jowoiii. 

li in ihiH l/ini<w>r II in (Mtinin^^ which wo ninMl. hoiu* in 
iiiind, Tor wiih IJiiu Hwopi ono nidn, Lil'n Iom«iii n,ll oolor 
(ind rficniiiri;' I tciinnndxu' ilin pfi^un wornhip ol' ( ilrooc.n, 
(ind In^i coiiiKMjdi 111, nnnrvnlion iind niin; Uio pM,{.^»in 
wondiip of ICoiiM), and Im^t r.oiiMOfpioni lironlJoiiiiiKWiH 
hor " I )(M',lin<i and l''/dl " and Inl, iiti innli/n llwd, jiitdi Ji,H 
Hiiro! y /lit wo fil/l<orn|)l l/O r,n,vty on ft, iKduwrio of nM)i'(dM 
ilnii, ill iioi, TouiidiMl on {,\\() '■'(Itxnl liook,'' iinoihor 
(ililihon will urino i(» wrilo Uio ^' Dodlino fuid l*nJI of iho 
Uniiod Hi,M,l/OH," for wo havo hoon told, on itu) hi^lioHl 
aidJiority, iJud, thoro iii *■' immio olJior nann^ iinth^r hoavnn 
wlwuohy wo may [jn waviul, f)ui tho nanu) of oiu Lord 
ijiunm (/liriHi." 

WInm our <'.y«',u aro opciMid^ mikI w«i j",o 1,o JJio rif^hi 
Houroo for holp and ^niidanrn, wo iiood not doMpair of 
i\\i) C/hildron. ltomond)or our H/iviour oim day n/iid, "Of 
Huoh iii llio Kiri^^dorii of I h^fivoii;'* /ijid fuiotlM-<r tirno ho 
'^io(dc a littlo (diild and h</t him in tho inidiit of thom " 
I Hoom to Hi)() thid littlo ono, loving, truntful, |>uro in 
heart, rrmkin^ j'lTortu, in hih hahy w'ly, to do an ho vviiH 
told; Hlii)pinp{ Ihm lilllo han<l into hin iatlior'H ho C/On/i- 
<lord,ly, HO un«pi«iitionin^ly ; r<',ady to wn,lk whitlKT Iho 
fathi'r hid. What worid<ir' (/hrint h/ido thom **l>o,c,omo 
liko unto ono of thoMo." It in a hofudifid pioturo; a 
f)oautiful ohjoot loHHon; itHhowa un what ohildron nhould 
l><: what (diihiron will ho, if w«- hriii^ thom up in (iod'n 
way. 



62 

So it keeps coming out to the same thing — it is the 
Gospel first, second and last — not just for Sunday, but 
for every day of the week; not for church alone, but for 
home and school as well. I know of no other purifica- 
tion for our defiled springs. 

Some nineteen years ago, Professor Koch of Berlin 
discovered that consumption was caused by a bacillus 
and that it was contagious. Since that time many and 
elaborate have been the researches, among physicians 
all over the world, for some specific to combat this germ. 
The utmost learning has been brought into requsition, 
and experiments without number have been performed 
in laboratories and hospitals. And now, after years 
spent in that labor, pliysicians are beginning to use 
Nature's remedies (which some of us have been using 
all our lives) and are performing wonders in curing 
consumptives. Sanatoria are now established in some 
parts of the world, whose open spaces have no window- 
glass, and close to these the patient sleeps, well bundled 
up, with the snow drifting over him perhaps — just 
plenty of clean, fresh air, by night and by day, and 
plenty of cold water for bathing. 

So may it be with us; after all the elaborate re- 
searches of philosopher and sociologist for some 
specific to combat our disease; after all the stiff-necked 
assertions of mankind that he can cure himself by 
effort of will; after experiments on the part of France, 
Germany, England, the United States and other coun- 
tries, in checking immorality, God grant we may come, ere 
it bo too late, to His simple remedies — the pure air of the 
Mount of Olives, and the revivifying Water of Life. 



other Works of Elizabeth Strong Worthington 

THE BIDDY CLUB. 

The same being a record of the doings, humorous and 
otherwise ; and thinkings, solemn and otherwise, of a Club 
formed with intent to discuss the care and training of 
children; the care and training of servants, and the care 
and training of husbands. 

McClurg & Co., Chicago, Ills. 

HOW TO COOK HUSBANDS. 

" They are really delicious when properly treated." 

Dodge Publishing Co., New York City. 

THE GENTLE ART OF COOKING WIVES. 

Humor and pathos — light and shade intermingled. A book 
of books for readings, at home or in public. 

The Dodge Publishing Company, New York City. 

THE LITTLE BROWN DOG. 

The first Spanish- American war story that appeared. 

Cubery & Company, San Francisco. 

AH These Works Kept by Leading Booksellers 



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